


Constellated

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Birthday Sex, Foreplay, Kissing, Love, M/M, Teasing, Touching, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 17:22:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12686736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: That single fingertip lands against the point of his shoulder with one concise tap, and in its wake, light floods his mind as another star sparks into existence. Shiro’s finger lingers there, tracing back and forth along his collarbone, connecting to the two points. A shiver runs down his spine.“Zeta. Epsilon. Aquila. . .” he breathes out.“Very good,” Shiro murmurs, his voice rich as mulled wine and just as intoxicating.Keith feels the heat of it against his lips, feels it sinking into his bloodstream and bringing him that heady brand of delight as Shiro kisses him. Slow and measured, every second of it is weighed against the time they too often convince themselves they do not have. Shiro doesn’t use his tongue, though his lips part slightly, encouraging the same of Keith’s. And when he finally pulls back, he can feel each millimeter peeling away until there’s only a drop of that kiss left clinging to his lower lip.And it makes him ache for more.





	Constellated

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a bit late but Happy Birthday, Keith!
> 
> And I completely forgot to add the song for this but here you go - enjoy!  Love is a Battlefield - Wrongchilde ft. White Sea 

They flash against the back of his eyes, these singular but brilliant bursts of silver light that flare in succession only to falter, flickering like hopes broken down to Morse code before the dark and silence swallow them entirely. Waiting to be heard, waiting to be made whole. 

Waiting.

_Boom!_

Another one spills light across the thin veil of his eyelids, breaking through the blackness. Keith feels his lips pulling into a smile, and somewhere above him laughter warms the air. 

“Do you know it?”

He shakes his head. Fingers skate across his collarbone, one after the other, rising onto their tips until only a single digit remains, drifting light over his skin. It rolls to a slow halt, and there it pauses, considering, before taking flight. 

Keith draws in a sharp breath, flooded with anticipation.

_Boom!_

That single fingertip lands against the point of his shoulder with one concise tap, and in its wake, light floods his mind as another star bursts into existence. Shiro’s finger lingers there, tracing back and forth along his collarbone, connecting to the two points. A shiver runs down his spine.

“Zeta. Epsilon. Aquila. . .” he breathes out.

“Very good,” Shiro murmurs, his voice rich as mulled wine and just as intoxicating. 

Keith feels the heat of it against his lips, feels it sinking into his bloodstream and bringing him that heady brand of delight as Shiro kisses him. Slow and measured, every second of it is weighed against the time they too often convince themselves they do not have. Shiro doesn’t use his tongue, though his lips part slightly, encouraging the same of Keith’s. When he finally pulls back, Keith can feel each millimeter peeling away until there’s only a drop of that kiss left clinging to his lower lip. 

And oh how it makes him ache for more.

Shiro, however, has moved lower. Fingertips swirl around his heart, and Keith sees a galaxy sparking into existence. Pinks and purples dye the black of the universe brilliant with color; stars flare to life, sparkling as they create new waypoints for wanderers to find their route home. Keith lets out a soft laugh as fingers drift over skin and brush against his nipple. 

“Eyes closed,” Shiro reminds him gently. 

He can’t help but comply, though impatience tells him he has the right to take more for himself. Today, at least, he has that right. But he stills, with a laugh rolling over his tongue and a smile tugging at his lips. 

“You’re killing me here, Shiro.”

A soft huff brushes against his skin, and Keith imagines the way Shiro’s lips glide across it before placing a placating kiss at the center of Keith's newly envisioned galaxy. It makes his heart jumpstart, one single roaring beat before thundering into a headlong gallop. He reaches down, blind but needing, and finds his fingers sinking into Shiro’s hair. With a quivering breath, Keith scrapes his nails across his scalp.

Shiro drags teeth across his skin in return. 

“I’ll revive you soon enough,” he replies as Keith gasps above him.

“Mmm. . .” is all he can muster in answer. Because there’s a heat coiling in his groin that’s threatening to singe his nerves and burn his veins dry with desire. 

For a moment, Keith feels nothing. No warmth of breath, no ghost of a touch. There’s only the heavy press of anticipation, swirling like early morning mist in his lungs and making him count every breath just to make sure it truly exists. He presses his thighs in against Shiro, only to earn a soft chuckle and a slide of palm against his right knee, guiding his leg back down.

“Patience. . .”

A word that’s easy to toss around when you aren’t the one being tested. Keith wants to snap back at that, but he hears the rustle of sheets as Shiro sets a hand down on the mattress. At the very sound of it, Keith finds every word fleeing from his mind. 

That’s not patience at work. It’s a sigh of relief waiting to be born. 

Shiro’s fingertip strikes at the center of his chest. A touch that reverberates right through him, sending a shockwave through his heart that ends with him biting his lip and praying to the gods that be that Shiro ends him soon. The second hit comes down below that, just above his solar plexus. The third lands to the left of that one, about half an inch lower, and Keith traces the lines in his mind, from one point to the next. 

“Anything?” Shiro asks.

His voice sounds hazy in Keith’s head, water-steeped. Another breath and Keith is certain it will be lost to the waves. He shakes his head.

The fourth tap comes at another leftward angle and is quickly followed by the fifth, trailing a little lower still and angling yet again towards the left. Just below his nipple. At that one, Shiro pauses to retrace his route, from the latest pinpoint struck against Keith's skin to the very first, linking each star in succession, then back again. Keith pulls his thoughts away from the sensation lingering over his chest, a momentary struggle in all honesty, and starts to scan through more familiar skies. The ones he and Shiro had studied years before, tracing constellations like celestial ley lines. Each with their due reverence.

He can see it, that midnight sky unfurling across the backs of his eyelids, rolling throughout his head until he swears he’s standing right there beneath it. Years ago, before experience had eaten the better parts of his remaining innocence. But Shiro had always said that’s where the love of something comes in - it keeps that bright light burning when it feels like all the world has gone dark around you. 

Another gasp breaks over his lips as the sixth strike swings upward, the lines of this constellation-in-making now cupping his heart. He sees it then, and there’s something almost bittersweet about the realization that sparks inside his mind. 

“Corona Borealis. . .” he murmurs, lips curving slightly. It’s not quite a smile, not at the start, but as Shiro’s palms press flat to his hips and start to glide up towards his ribs, it finally blossoms into one. “The broken crown.”

“Is that how you take it?”

Keith hums again softly at that. Shiro huffs out a breath against his chest. 

“Ariadne wore it on her wedding day.” 

Hands continue to move across his skin, firm and grounding, and before Keith can think of a reply, lips find the space above his navel. The warmth of it melts the breath in his lungs. Keith knows this sort of kiss, slow and reverent, worshiping the ground it touches. 

It’s almost shameless. 

Shiro continues to move upward, placing kiss after kiss like a man lighting prayer candles, as his fingers splay out wide over Keith’s ribs. He is. . .all-encompassing. That’s all Keith can think as his back arches in response to Shiro’s touch. 

He is the night sky, with all its meteoric potential and hope stitched into its very fabric. Shiro is the reason flames burn so bright. 

His name drops from Keith’s lips like a half-formed prayer, words devoured by something greater than himself yet still the need is felt to speak them. Nails rake down his sides in response, claiming inch after inch with steady lines until hip bones end their course. The last kiss finds itself at the center of his chest, where Shiro had placed the first star of Corona Borealis. 

Three constellations down. It’s the slowest undoing Keith has ever experienced, and he doesn’t know whether to curse it or beg for more. His cock throbs, his fingers dig into the sheets, and he desperately wants to open his eyes. But, he had promised Shiro at the start of this he wouldn’t. Not until given permission.

And it's rather hard to say no to Shiro with that look in his eyes and that grin over his mouth like he had vows worth speaking and secrets worth telling. Keith thinks that had been the greatest lie in all of this for it’s his own body that’s betrayed him, spilling secrets with every touch, and his own lips forming a single name like a sacred oath.

Maybe that’s the gift of it all, the way Shiro draws truth from him like roots drinking up water, only Keith is the one flourishing in the end. He can feel it in the way his body aches for Shiro with every breath, each touch evoking desire, each kiss like a torch flaring to life, lighting the way to the very depths of who he is. 

But Keith has always known this - at his very core, Shiro is there. He’s as ingrained in him as the sun’s light is in the image of the moon. 

A fingertip taps against his left hip. It’s followed quickly by three others, forming an upside-down trapezoid, and a fourth just to the left of Keith’s navel. It lingers there, forming a slow circle around the nucleus Shiro had initially dropped over his skin. Keith feels his breath hitch. Even worse, he feels his cock twitch. 

Shiro lets loose a low laugh against his thigh. 

“I want to say fuck you but keep going.” Keith exhales the words with a touch of irritation. He wants more, and more is precisely what Shiro is going to give him.

He has faith in that. 

The next touch strikes down just above his bellybutton. Shiro then retraces his steps, boxing in Keith’s left hip then following the line to his navel. The next star-point bursts into being below it with another set a short distance to the right of that one. A brief intermission as again the lines are charted, connecting each point in succession. 

Keith gives his head a slight shake when the next pause seems to question him. 

Shiro continues out without a word, setting the next three points down in a line trailing to his groin. The last tap of his finger skirts the tip of his cock, and Keith lets out a soft groan at that. 

Another pause. Another shake of his head. 

The constellation deviates upward slightly, then begins to coast along the lower limits of his abdomen. With a deep inhale, fingers clenching and unclenching the sheets beneath him, Keith forces himself to focus on the stars being set in his memory-conjured sky. He goes back to the beginning, watching as they spark bright as struck matches in his mind and hang there, burning against the darkness. 

One after the other, burning then dying, passing light between them like hopes across generations.

Shiro’s finger begins connecting each point again, and as it dips down that line that leads to his cock, Keith exhales deeply.

“Draco.”

He feels the laughter before he hears it, spilling hot against his inner thigh. “Bingo.”

Something wells up within him then, large and consuming, a tsunami wave made of fire and want. Keith is already drowning in this. It’s that molten element to Shiro’s voice that does it to him, dripping desire with two simple syllables right onto his skin. The searing residue of it will be felt for days afterward. Keith knows this just as he knows sixty seconds spill into a minute, and that a minute can feel like forever when you’re standing on the precipice of everything you could possibly want in this battle-torn reality of theirs. 

It’s having Shiro just like this, for a night to call his own, without the armor around their hearts and the locks bolted down over the doors they store the best and worst of their memories. 

Here, they exist. Piece by piece, unburdened by the mechanisms of a universe at war. 

Here, he is Keith, and there, making way-marks across his skin, is Takashi. 

Shiro starts with his inner thigh, just inside of his knee. The kisses are light, and like the first drops of rain, tease promises of more to come. At varied intervals, Shiro sets another one down, carefully pressing Keith’s leg open as he works his way closer and closer to his hip. By the time he reaches mid-thigh, the kisses have become heavier, the scrape of teeth sending shudders scuttling up his spine and crashing into the base of his skull. 

The first _real_ mark Shiro makes leaves Keith gasping. With a blind reach, he finds Shiro’s head once more and sinks his fingers hard and fast into his hair until he has a grounding grip. He imagines Shiro making his way around landmines, skirting the bruises that are already there from previous battles and training sessions, and setting his own in place. And maybe, when all is said and done, Keith will chart out potential courses along his skin, trying to decipher which marks were made by Shiro and which were made by the world. 

Perhaps it’s the cut of teeth that will give him the clue he needs. Or the imagined shape of lips that Keith could trace in his dreams, so well known to him were they now. 

Shiro’s final kiss arrives with a palm laid flat against his cock, shifting it to the side, as lips settle into place beside it. Close, but certainly not close enough. The groan that rocks his throat is full of frustration overridden by a greater desire for more. He’s so close, and Keith knows that Shiro knows this. Pushing him inch by inch towards that wondrous edge, then tugging him away from it.

Never sharply though. 

It’s a smooth regression back to a more manageable state of being, where Keith can feel the need curling up in his abdomen like smoke from a well-tended fire. Not quite the conflagration it’ll become once every limit is transgressed, and all he has left is to burn, burn, burn.

The next pause in action leaves Keith breathing shallowly in anticipation. He tries to bring the sky back into focus, rolling it out across his mind once more, and waits for the moment Shiro starts to paint stars across his skin again. 

_There._

A finger touches down right at the center of the line where his right thigh meets his pelvis. To the right of it, another point sparks. Keith exhales a shuddering breath and curls his fingers into the sheets once more. The next point lights up just to the left of the first star set down, and it’s followed quickly by another one, placed to left of it. Four points running in a neat line, far too close to everything Keith wishes Shiro would touch instead. 

Never has agony been so sweet. He wants to dive into it all, let the sky and Shiro consume him whole, but he also loves this careful dissection of everything he wants and holds dear. Point by point, memories are stirred of years long ago, steeped in fading-sun skies and a different life. Touch by touch, Keith is reminded of the worth in every ounce of him, loved by a single man. All its scars and stories, every variant of being that makes him Keith.

Shiro falters before none of it. 

His fingers unclench and slide along the sheets as a fingertip retraces its steps, then turns at the center point towards his thigh. It courses along lightly for a moment, charting a line that mimics his femur, then stops. Another tap, another star brought to life against his eyelids. Keith breathes in with a smile. 

“Do you think you know it?” 

He laughs at that, the sound soft in its amusement. “No, Shiro. . .You’ve barely begun. Give me another one.”

Keith gets a low, considering hum for that before the next star is stamped against his skin. It arrives a short distance from the previous one and is followed by another one just behind it, lengthening the line to his mid-thigh. He gives a shake of his head at that, forcing his eyes to stay shut when Shiro chuckles over him.

“Not yet, huh? All right. . .”

The next star erupts overs his skin, and once more, Shiro traces and retraces the route connecting each star point. It sits like a capital ’T’ running sideways along his inner thigh, its stem just a bit crooked. Shiro taps another point into existence just below his last one, then another, trailing the constellation down towards his knee. 

“You should know this one birthday boy,” Shiro murmurs, and Keith can feel the heat of his breath against his skin. Right where -

“Antares,” Keith murmurs. He’s greeted with a sharp nip where Shiro had placed the red supergiant. “Scorpius.”

Everything goes silent at that. No further stars are drawn onto his mind’s sky, no other touches made to conjure up constellations over his skin. Just Shiro’s quiet breathing, his own ragged one, and a soft plastic _pop!_ seconds later. 

Keith doesn’t know which sensation hits him first - the heat wrapping itself around the tip of his cock or the cool wetness pressing against his hole. Both have a sharp gasp jumping from his lips like a freeform skydiver, reckless in its pleasure as it lets the air take it. His hips buck, but Shiro’s hand curls around his thigh and gently coaxes the limb back down to the mattress. “Shiro, please. . .” 

A whimper. That was a fucking _whimper_ , and Keith feels the red scalding his cheeks at the sound of it. It’s not that he hates it necessarily, or hasn’t done so before in moments similar to this, but rather that he only has a single finger in his ass and Shiro’s mouth around his cock and it already betrays how close he is to letting it all go. 

But, something idly murmurs in his head (maybe one of the gods scattered across his night sky or their many star-strung creations), this means he got it correct and isn’t that worth the prize? 

Keith moans as Shiro’s mouth takes in more of him. 

“Yes. . .” he hisses, answering that voice. It’s well worth the potential embarrassment of coming there on the spot. 

Shiro, however, is careful. His mouth eases off his cock, with a farewell flick of tongue across its head, and the movements of his finger slow to an ache-inducing halt. The tidal wave Keith had sworn was building in his stomach, ready to crash over his groin and drown that throbbing need for release, sinks back into the ocean Want has made of his core. 

Silence again. 

Even so, Shiro’s finger still works in and out of him at a languid pace. Keith can’t hate the man entirely for this, for the way he makes him ride the very edge of Desire’s abyss. He knows you can stare into things like that, how sometimes it supposedly stares right back at you, but at this moment, Keith knows he would welcome its dark embrace. Let it swallow him whole, staining him right through to his very core, and he’d wake with the imprints of Shiro’s want upon his very soul.

The next star doesn’t spark over his skin with a pointed tap but rather the warmth of lips. It’s unexpected, and it drives a shiver right down his spine. And through it all, Shiro continued to finger him. Even as the second kiss comes, just to the inside of his opposite knee, he still keeps working Keith open. It’s relentless, and yet not nearly enough. 

Inside of his head, the sky dances like heat over desert dunes, blues and purples undulating over total black. He recalls the two star-points already set down, each sputtering in their attempts to exist, each unable to latch onto the sky. How is he supposed to concentrate when Shiro keeps. . .keeps. . .

Keith moans as a second finger slides in. “Shiro. . .I can’t. . .please. . .”

Another kiss answers him instead. Then another and another, and Keith forces himself to focus on the way Shiro trails his lips over his skin, connecting each point, which he stamps into existence once again with a flick of his tongue. 

“You’ve got this, Keith. You’ve gotten every single one of them already. . .”

He’s shaking his head again, back and forth over the pillow, and sending the stars tumbling right out of his sky. They lay there, flickering like dying fireflies over the floor of his mind before sinking into the darkness. All he wants to do is _feel_.

“It’s the biggest one yet.”

The breath shudders in Keith’s chest at that then finds itself on his tongue as a laugh. “As usual, you have shit humor.” 

For the first time since Shiro had told him to lay down, Keith opens his eyes and stares down between his legs. He lifts an eyebrow at Shiro, who continues to work his fingers in and out of him, and offers him a tight smirk. Because he can see just how hard Shiro is himself, his cock straining against the sheets and Shiro’s hips giving shallow thrusts against it.

“Close your eyes already,” Shiro chuckles. To prove the worth of the demand, he tips his head and nips at Keith’s thigh. 

Keith does as commanded, letting his head sink back to the pillow and his mind conjure up desert sky and five stars sparkling like renewed hope within it.

For his compliance, a third finger joins the other ones, and Keith practically squirms as he tries to maintain control of the visuals he had only just managed to reestablish in his headspace.

Another nip redirects his attention back to his thigh, and with it, another star explodes in the sky. Keith resists the urge to clamp his legs closed, and instead, breathes out a soft whine. The constellation continues to slide down towards his hip, zig-zagging along his thigh like a sidewinding cobra over Saharan sands. With every kiss, warmth tumbles over his skin until there’s near twenty points (he lost count around fifteen when he finally said fuck it all to accuracy) splashed across the backs of his eyelids. 

On and on it goes, a never-ending river of stars.

As the next point of the constellation is set upon his thigh, Keith feels the world fall away. There is only darkness, his mind swiped of all color, and the furious beating of his heart somewhere in the depths of it all. With one ragged breath, he whispers, “Eridanus.”

Silence returns to consume the air between them. A sudden empty fills Keith as Shiro pulls his fingers out of him and the bed creaks as weight shifts. Keith doesn’t ask when a soft grunt hits the air, singed with momentary gratification. He doesn’t speak when the bed protests again and hands press against his hips. 

The world feels electric all around him, a storm ready to rage. Stars are jumping like live wires across his mind now as constellations flash and tangle together. Keith can’t help but think that this is how it always goes - histories get convoluted and fates intertwine while hearts are strung out, and a body is left waiting for the moment that one person makes it all whole again.

When Shiro presses into him, Keith swears it’s hallelujah leaping from his tongue even as he hears it as a sharp but simple gasp. It’s not forceful. Not at all. Rather, he can feel every inch easing itself into him, and when Shiro finally bottoms out, Keith opens his eyes.

It’s a smile that greets him, just a bit strained under the weight of desire. Perfect in all the ways that finely honed control can be when it's put to the test. Sometimes, it takes him a moment to register what’s happened, that between his legs is the one man he’s wanted - wanted to be at one point (until Shiro showed him he could be himself and better at that), and then simply _wanted_. And that this man is now waiting for him, to see that first glimmer of pleasure in his eyes, before he takes that next move. Keith feels his cock twitch as he glances down and sees just how deep Shiro is buried inside of him. 

Hands drift from Keith’s hips to his knees. Fingers curl around them then slowly lift and spread, opening Keith up more and dragging a low moan off his tongue as Shiro’s cock sinks in a bit more. 

He enjoys watching it, the way they connect like this, the way Shiro’s gaze grows dark as need starts to burn desire to the ground, and something greater rises from its ashes. It makes him think they can’t fuck fast enough or hard enough to outpace this thing before it consumes them both. It’ll take them together, break them down and put a few more knots in those red strings binding them, reminding them of every point they came together, how they made another memory for themselves. 

Keith wonders if he could put that against the sky. This constellation of them. 

Shiro draws his hips back, and with it pulls Keith’s attention from his mind’s sky to something a bit more grounding. Fingers abandon the sheets to coast along his thighs and close down over Shiro’s grip. The first solid thrust comes and sends a hiccup of a gasp stumbling out over Keith’s lips. 

“Happy birthday, baby.” Shiro grins, then delivers the second jerk of his hips. It ends with a sharp smack of skin. 

Laughter finds him then. Shaking his head, Keith lets his head fall back against the pillow once more and throws an arm over his face. To hide the blush. He knows he’s doing a piss poor job of it, and instead, tightens himself around Shiro’s cock until he hears the betraying moan from Shiro’s lips. 

From there, like it so often does with them, they find their rhythm. Shiro starts at an even pace, driving into him with sure and steady thrusts that bring Keith closer than he cares to admit to that edge. The one Shiro’s had him skirting for the better part of half an hour now. Every so often, Shiro reaches down and wraps a hand around his cock, pumping him off time to the jerking of his hips, occasionally rolling the curve of his palm over its tip until Keith is cursing.

He’s not sure what for really. Maybe at Shiro for doing this horrendously wonderful thing to him, at the world for giving him a man like Shiro and somehow seeing him fit enough for such a gift, at that hot coiling need to release all over his stomach and feel Shiro do the same.

That’s the thing about cursing - it’s not always about damning something to the bowels of whatever hell you swear it came from, but looking at the stars and feeling how infinitely small you can be and yet realizing the universe still deems you worthy enough for something like this. 

To be loved. 

To have it shown to you in ways that could break your heart at any other time, but right now. . .right now it’s being filled to the brim and fortified with the steel woven from another instead. 

Leaning over, Shiro drives in a little deeper, and with a press of his hands, encourages Keith to wrap his legs around his hips. He complies with a soft moan that breaks down into sharper pants in the aftermath. Short, staccato betrayals of just how good this brand of pleasure has him feeling. Lips find his moments later, robbing them of the sound; the kiss isn’t clean, a bit of teeth and another moan to be swallowed down - Shiro’s, not his. Keith reaches up, circles his arms around Shiro’s neck, and kisses him again. 

_Deeper._

He tells Shiro that too, seconds later, and with a slow roll of his hips, Shiro delivers. Keith feels his back arch, his cock rubbing against Shiro’s stomach with every thrust into him. It’s wet, and it’s warm, and it’s far too sensitive. Lips part as he cries out then comes half a breath later. Shiro’s hand finds his cock again and firmly jerks him through the rest of his orgasm. 

Keith doesn’t even think about the mess. He can’t. Because Shiro’s hand is pumping him to his end, and he’s murmuring now about how close he is, how he wants Keith to finish him.

At any other time, he might have scoffed at those words, rebuking Shiro for even suggesting it. Instead, he pulses himself tightly around Shiro’s cock, tugs him down closer, and exhales heavily against his lips.

“Now,” Keith commands breathlessly. 

When Shiro comes, it’s with a moan thick with satisfaction. The smile that leaps to Keith’s lips is resplendent, pleased with itself, with everything this evening, and so shamelessly in love. Because he is.

In love, that is. 

Shiro’s hips stutter to the end of his orgasm, slowing until he’s buried to the base of his cock once more and heaving over Keith. Another kiss greets his lips, delivered with an exhausted laugh. 

“Gamma Scorpii,” comes whispered out with the next breath. 

When Keith’s eyes meet Shiro’s, he sees dawn breaking in them. A light bright and warm as it climbs out of the darkness. It tells Keith there is still something else to this, something that has Shiro’s heart lifting itself from the still glowing embers of his desire. 

A small, bemused smirk takes over the corner of his mouth. “More stars. . .?”

Were they really still playing this game?

“Zubeneschamali,” Shiro murmurs against Keith’s ear, hips shifting. He’s about to pull out, an idea Keith quickly nixes by clamping his legs down around Shiro’s waist again. 

He’s not ready to feel that odd bit of empty that always comes afterward, reminding him that the world can still pull them apart. That the world has always found a way to pull them apart. Arms tightening around Shiro’s neck, he pours his reply into Shiro’s ear, his words soft and needing and everything he wishes he wasn’t in this moment but undoubtedly is. 

"Libra. . .the scales of justice. . .Scorpio’s former claw. . .” Keith answers.

With a careful tip of his head, Shiro places a kiss on Keith’s cheek. He drags a hand down his side, fingertips swirling over the space of Keith's ribs, and brings it to his thigh. Shiro splays out his fingers, curling them around his leg. 

“I have one last thing for you,” he murmurs, his voice doused with quiet. There’s something raw, almost apprehensive in the softness of its sound. 

Shiro’s hand carefully pulls at his knee. It’s a gentle ask of him - _Let me go._

Keith complies with a shuddering breath and his heart courting panic. They’ve come so close to an end so many times, and right now all he wants is Shiro. Close and warm and undoubtedly alive. So very much his and his alone, the one thing he’s willing to fight the universe for if it comes to that.

And it has.

The universe typically wins. Just. . .somehow, it always seems to fit to bring Shiro back to him.

But Keith prefers the flesh, blood, and bone he can touch rather than the memory of a man that drifts over his touch like fog. 

Shiro pulls out of him with a slow kiss, putting reassurance on his tongue even as Keith feels himself emptied. He closes his legs almost immediately, barely distracted by the slick between his cheeks, as he follows Shiro’s path with his gaze. Shiro rolls off the bed with a soft grunt, then pads over to the desk across from the bed. He has taken to using it more often lately, storing notes and lists, maps with territories marked. Something about having the time to write and examine rather than constantly staring down the infinity of a universe at war over some projection. 

Keith gets it, and honestly, has enjoyed watching Shiro sit there as he moves through each piece in its turn, adding as needed or when the thought hits him, calling over his shoulder to him for his ideas on a subject. Maybe because it reminds him of another time, in a place he doubts he’ll see again but remembers far too vividly some nights. Some of those memories are like broken glass bottles, their edges jagged and cutting. Others are like the one forming right now, with Shiro stark naked, riffling through a drawer, and Keith unable tell himself he doesn’t admire the view.

Takashi Shirogane has always had a rather nice ass.

To think that would be the thought that would finally settle his nerves. Huffing out a laugh, Keith lets himself sink back to the mattress. He drags the sheet over and uses it to wipe at his stomach with a grimace and a groan, both of which must have made Shiro turn and smile because there is he, looking right at him. In his hand, there’s a small gray box.

“I know this war will require us to make difficult decisions. . .” Shiro begins, flipping the box over and over in his hands. He takes a deep breath then steps back over to the bed. It’s only when he’s seated on the edge of the mattress that he holds the box out to Keith. “. . .but know that I am always waiting for you to come home, Keith.”

He takes the box only to find his arm locked into place, outstretched there before him, and his eyes caught on Shiro like he’s just turned supernova. 

“Shiro. . .”

“Open it.”

A smile flickers over Shiro’s lips then, followed a moment later by his tongue running over the lower one. It’s something Shiro does when he gets nervous, and the recognition of that gesture drops Keith’s gaze down to the box. He sits up.

“All right.”

As simple as that. 

Because when Shiro’s humanity starts to show all its cracks, Keith can’t help but listen. He pulls the lid off slowly, like a man hoping he got the tune right and soothed enough of the cobra’s mind to avoid the strike. Sitting on a small silver cushion is a ring. Dark metal, though not black. A deep heart-of-the-earth sort of gray. 

With a flick of a glance at Shiro, Keith picks the ring up with his index finger and thumb and holds it up before him. There are markings on its surface, inner and outer both. Lines of varying lengths, connecting small points dug into the metal like memories into headspace. 

“Libra. Draco. Eriandus. Aquila. Corona Borealis. . .” Keith murmurs as he rotates the ring. He stops when his eye catches a small red jewel, set like the very soul of its constellation. “Scorpius.”

Shiro licks his lips again. “The ring is an amalgamation of metals found on Earth.”

“Home,” Keith whispers. 

“Where we first met. And the stars. . .the night skies of certain. . .events for us.”

The blush hits Keith's cheeks like the opening splatter of rainfall from clouds too heavy to carry it. Suddenly, he remembers. That first night out, first kisses, first confessions, first. . . _everything_. Shiro had pointed out a constellation on each of those nights, and now, here they sit in one compressed piece of a promise. Keith draws his knees up to his chest, hand closing to a fist around the ring, and sets his head against his thighs. 

Everything feels too full. His chest wants to burst, and his heart wants to explode, and he’s just too big for this body now. Keith screws his eyes shut against the impending flood of tears, wishing it wouldn’t be like that. That he’s not sitting here with the best thing the universe has ever done for him and feeling like he’s falling apart from it all. The breath shudders on his inhale. 

Wrapping his arms around him, Shiro leans in and murmurs softly into his hair. “Happy birthday, Keith.”

This isn’t just _happy birthday_. It’s _thank you for being in my life_. It’s _welcome home_. It’s _this is forever and always_. 

“I love you,” Keith says, quiet but sure. “I love you, Takashi.”

This is what it means to strip a heart bare. 

Above him, Shiro huffs out lightly, then presses a kiss to the crown of his head. “I love you too. Always have.”


End file.
